


Just An Infatuation

by nightbirdrises



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Gen, HIV/AIDS, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-10 08:42:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightbirdrises/pseuds/nightbirdrises
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A hopeful, romantic young writer moves to New York City, dreams alight with enthusiasm. A jaded club dancer longs for the theatrical stage, unsure if he’ll ever make it before the inevitable happens. This is the story of how they meet — and how they fall in love. (based on Moulin Rouge)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rewrite of the fic of the same name that I never actually finished. Fingers crossed that I get through it this time! (and remember that while I do research, it might not always be real-life accurate, both intentionally and unintentionally.)  
> Updates will be posted here as well as on [Tumblr](http://nightbirdrises.tumblr.com/tagged/fic%3A-jai) (you can also find the old one in that tag)
> 
>  **additional warnings:** overall — HIV/AIDS, attempted rape, allusions to prostitution, drug use, past dub-con, and past gay bashing. And there will be character death **BUT** you won’t have to read that part if you don’t want to — it’ll work fine whether you do or not. This list will probably be altered as it moves forward and things happen \o/

The apartment building kind of sucks.

There’s no elevator, just an old flight of stairs that creaks no matter how lightly he steps. The gruesome pastel-yellow wallpaper is peeling, giving Blaine the somewhat creepy impression that the building is flaking to pieces. It’s all he can afford, though, and he’s really just happy to be here in New York City, the center of the universe.

He checks his key again, a worn, old-fashioned scrap of metal that looks like it belongs in an antique shop. Carved into it is a three-digit number: 501. Blaine groans, hefts his bag up to support it on his shoulder, and continues onward. His feet start to drag somewhere around the third floor; it has been a long day. In fact, this morning he’d still been in Ohio.

A brief conversation with his parents, some time to pack a bag of necessities, and a one-way plane ticket was all he’d needed. Money, on the other hand… he’d been cut off. His parents are fairly well off in regards to wealth, but none of that belongs to Blaine now. He’s a disappointment, after all. Why should he taint the family’s assets?

It’s true that he loves his parents, and they love him. They just don’t see eye-to-eye when it comes to what’s best for Blaine’s future. He’s twenty-one and itching to see the world — then sit down and write about it. Not just what the world looks like, but how it moves. How it breathes and expands and collapses in the endless confines of human imagination. His parents, on the other hand, worry. They worry that he’ll go broke and end up homeless on the streets.

So it makes total sense that they cut him off when he decided to move. Blaine still wonders about that sometimes, when the silence grows heavy and his thoughts fight to fill that empty space.

He cheers mentally when he sees the door, marked with a large, blocky F5. Luckily, he’s able to simply turn to his left after the doorway and find himself face-to-face with room 501.  _Finally._

Inside, the room is… not as bad as it could be. The color scheme is absolutely horrifying, but it doesn’t bother Blaine too much. All he really cares about right now is the bed, which he plans to sleep on for at least a week. He feels tired enough. After changing into a pair of sweatpants and an old white T-shirt, Blaine is about to collapse on the mattress when the door handle starts to shake violently, startling him.

He stares apprehensively at the door as he inches towards it, worried that he’s already been targeted by the mafia or something. Which is ridiculous, but the handle keeps twisting back and forth and it looks as though it might be torn right out of the door; he doesn’t have a lot of room for rational thought at the moment.

“Not  _again_ ,” he hears through the door; Blaine frowns. “I can’t believe it.”

“Hello?” Blaine asks loudly, now standing close enough to the door that he can hear a subsequent thump and a muttered stream of profanities. He decides to open the door against his better judgment and sees, backed up against the opposite wall with eyes wide, a young man that seems to be around Blaine’s age. He has wavy blonde hair and a _lot_  of mouth — it takes Blaine a moment for him to realize that he’s staring directly at those lips.

“How did you get in my apartment?” the man asks warily.

“Your apartment? I just moved in,” Blaine says. “And I’m pretty sure the front desk didn’t say anything about a roommate.”

“I don’t know, but my key isn’t working anyways. See?” The man hands the key to Blaine, who examines it. “It’s all twisted and messed up.”

“It also says five hundred and two,” Blaine points out, showing it to him. “You’ve got the wrong room.”

“Are you serious?” Blaine nods as the man takes the key with a groan. “I’m sorry about that, dude. I guess I’m your neighbor, then.”

“I’m Blaine,” Blaine says, holding a hand out for the other man to shake.

“Sam. One question: Iron Man or Captain America?”

“Is this a test?”

“Yes.”

Blaine grins in spite of himself. “Captain America.” Sam breaks into a wide smile of his own, confirming without words that Blaine had achieved a passing grade in Befriending Your Neighbors 101. Maybe this apartment won't be so bad, after all.

 

* * *

 

That initial conversation sparks a steadfast friendship between the two of them, but it isn’t until Blaine has been in the city for about a month that he gets around to asking Sam about his past. They’re in Sam’s room, the Avengers in the middle of a heroic battle on the TV screen with the volume low, when Blaine starts to speak.

“Where are you from?”

“Kentucky,” Sam answers shortly, popping a pretzel into his mouth. “We moved there from someplace I can’t remember; I was just a little kid. Not exactly the best time of my life.”

“Why?”

Sam takes a deep breath. “The economy went to shit and we got the worst of it. My parents couldn’t hold jobs for longer than a few months at a time, and they had three kids to feed. Once I was old enough, I kind of started working as a stripper at this weird little bar. My parents thought I worked at Dairy Queen,” he added, chuckling.

“Wow, I’m sorry,” Blaine says, at a loss.

“Don’t worry about it, man. Now I send some of my paycheck home for my little brother, who’s in the hospital. He’s okay,” Sam says hastily, before Blaine can imagine the worst. “He’ll just be in there for a while, and medical bills suck.”

Blaine nods — he can at least sympathize with the staggering costs of sitting in a sterilized room day after day. He hopes he’ll never have to do that again, for any reason whatsoever.

They continue to snack and watch the movie in silence. That is, until Sam slowly turns to Blaine with pure excitement etched on his face.

“What?”

“Have you ever been to a strip club?”

“No. Why?” Sam shrugs, then grins before tossing the bowl of popcorn to Blaine, who almost drops it. “What—”

“Go get ready, bro. There’s a place I want to show you.”

“I don’t have the money for a night out, Sam.”

“You don’t need it.”

Sam shoos Blaine out of his apartment then, insisting that they meet in the hallway in fifteen minutes because “You don’t need to be too fancy,” at which Blaine had rolled his eyes.

“I had no idea strip clubs weren’t suit-and-tie venues,” he calls through the door before taking a few steps to his own and unlocking it with a complicated twist and jiggle that seems to be the best method for opening this particular door. He doesn’t mind, at least not anymore — it’s a place to live, a place that he can return to each day after doing odd jobs and simply relax. Unless Sam gets him to hang out, which isn’t exactly a chore either.

Blaine shuffles through his limited wardrobe, lamenting the loss of some of his favorite outfits in the hurry to move out. He manages with a pair of decent jeans and a polo — green, with black accents. Surprisingly enough, it doesn’t take long to freshen up; though maybe it’s not that surprising, considering he finds taking care of himself and his appearance to be of utmost importance. He may be just verging on the edge of broke, but the least he can do is look nice.

Maybe it’s shallow to care so much about outward appearances. Isn’t it all a lie, not just for him but for everyone like him, terrified of showing what’s really happening in their lives? That can’t be right. There’s something more to it, at least for Blaine. He just doesn’t know what it is, yet.

“Dude, come on, we’re gonna be late!” Sam shouts from outside. Blaine ducks out of the bathroom and pulls on a jacket, rushing to the door.

“How could we be late for this?” Blaine asks as he locks the door behind him, arching an eyebrow at Sam.

“You want a good seat, right?” Blaine opens his mouth to disagree, but finds himself stuck. He’s never really breached this topic with Sam before, how he doesn’t think he’ll find what he wants at places like strip clubs, how he’d much rather sit idly by and amuse himself by watching Sam inevitably do something ridiculous. “Let’s go.”

Blaine nods and follows Sam down the stairs — his daily exercise; Blaine’s pretty sure his legs will soon rival those of ‘his’ trainers, the ones that are hidden in the back of his closet and enclosed in brightly colored plastic cases with bold, jaunty lettering.

They finally pass through the heavy front doors, and the city is oddly calm in the light of the setting sun. Not that either of them can see the sun beyond the towering urban behemoths that surround them, but gold shafts stream between brick and steel, reflect off of glass to shine brilliantly at sharp angles, both revealing the dirt and grime of New York and giving it an ethereal glow that only similar settings can hope to match. It’s home, Blaine thinks.

He’ll return to Ohio one day, of course, to visit family. Maybe his parents, if they forgive him. But he doesn’t think of that house, with its stark white walls and glaringly mismatched (but luxurious) furniture, as home. He hasn’t thought of it that way in at least a month.

Sam leads the way down the avenue and to the right — apparently the place isn’t too far, it’s “convenient,” to use Sam’s word for it.

Blaine sees the building before Sam even has the chance to point it out, all thanks to a flashing neon sign that sticks out towards the street with two letters burnt out so that it reads B DY SHO S instead of BODY SHOTS.

“I can’t believe you’re making me do this,” Blaine mutters.

“It’ll be fun,” Sam says with confidence. “The guy dancers are in one room and the girls are in another right below it. Something for everyone.”

“Sam—”

“Give it a shot, bro. If you don’t like it just come find me and we can go somewhere else. I promise.” Blaine nods because, yes, that seems like a sensible plan. He doesn’t expect to be there long, but maybe he’ll be surprised, he thinks as they walk through the door, apparently allowed in for free after Sam whispers something to the bouncer that stands outside.

Once inside, Blaine blinks rapidly; it’s dark, not pitch-black but the only light he can detect is from a series of small round bulbs that hang above them. Sam points to a side hall.

“That’s where you’re going,” he says.

“How do you know so much about this place?”

“I used to work here.” Sam waves farewell and disappears through another door before Blaine can say another word. With no other choices at hand, he heads down the side hall and slips through the door at the end. He’s starting to dread the show — this is the kind of thing he’d rather do with someone else, if he has to do it, but Sam wouldn’t be interested.

Blaine takes a seat off to the side, at a small, round table that’s apparently meant for two. It’s decided: he’ll stay for one performance (two tops) then go find Sam and drag him out to the 24-hour coffeeshop near their apartment. Meanwhile, Blaine overhears the conversation of a small group nearby, composed of both men and women around thirty years of age.

“Tell me, which one is your favorite?”

“White Chocolate, hands down.”

“Clarice, he hasn’t been up there in months.”

“I know! It’s a tragedy. I wanted a piece of that.”

“Well,  _I_  like the Masked Dove.”

“The Dove? How innocent do you really think that fucker is? Let me tell you — there is no virgin alive that can move his hips like  _that._ ”

“I don’t know, but he really pulls it off. God, if only we were allowed to touch…”

Blaine tunes out after that, both faintly disgusted and, unfortunately, intrigued. He can’t help but wonder at the names he’d heard, that he still hears, detached from the quiet conversations about the room. They’re all distinctly ridiculous and brazen, but they hide people behind them. What are they like? The Masked Dove — what is his coffee order, if he drinks it at all? What are (or were) his dreams? Blaine can’t imagine that a life as an exotic dancer would be sufficiently glamorous for a dream.

And why, why is he still here if there is a dream to chase? Suddenly Blaine wants to know everything, not just about the Dove but about the histories and secret desires of every performer he’s about to see.

Maybe there’s a story in that. Maybe about love.

Love.

He’s never been in love, of course. It has always been an abstract idea to him, albeit a fascinating one. That’s why he’s not interested in this, not for himself, who wants the dive, twist, and turn of emotion tied in with the concrete reality of skin against skin, of tongues and teeth and breaths, three words lingering in the air with each exhale. Or just one.

Love.

Blaine chuckles to himself; he’s hopeless and he knows it. Life hardly ever follows the trail of books or films of that nature. Still, he holds tight to a thin strand of hope that he’ll find that word (how can it be just one word when the meaning covers endless time and its fallacies?) and all it encompasses.

His fingers itch to write, now, but he stays in his seat. One performance and he’ll leave, maybe get Sam to split an order of pizza and, later, open up his worn-out notebook and create a new world from marks on a page.

The lights start to dim further, and Blaine’s attention turns to the stage in the center of the room, which is suddenly bathed in a silvery glow that puts him in mind of the moon and stars. A lone figure, dressed in bulky black clothing, struts into view. Strut is the only word for it; the man exudes confidence and poise with every step, and even the amused tilt of his head as he surveys the crowd has a certain nobility that Blaine would, until now, only have associated with royalty.

The hood falls, revealing the man’s face. Sort of. The left side of it is covered up down to the upper lip by an elaborate silver mask trimmed with white. A small bunch of white feathers, short in length, line the upper corner of the mask and taper into a soft point that hardly reaches the height of his hair. The mask shines, a modest amount of sequins reflecting the light into the audience, which seems to be collectively holding its breath.

Deft hands with long fingers play with the zipper of the sweatshirt he’s wearing, one corner of the man’s mouth turned up in that same regal way at the wolf-whistles that start to sound, one overlapping another. He zips halfway down, eyebrow raised in a half-expression of disbelief before he covers up again, much to the dismay of the people in front of him.

Blaine, for his part, watches with wide eyes, silent and unsure and absolutely captivated. Guilt settles in the pit of his stomach for enjoying himself — because he is, he so is — but he ignores it.

The Masked Dove, for there’s no other that this man could possibly be, suddenly abandons all pretense and strips down to a gleaming white vest laced with silver thread and sinfully tight pants that leave nothing to the imagination except for how they could possibly come off.

And he begins to dance.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A hopeful, romantic young writer moves to New York City, dreams alight with enthusiasm. A jaded club dancer longs for the theatrical stage, unsure if he'll ever make it before the inevitable happens. This is the story of how they meet -- and how they fall in love. (based on Moulin Rouge)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this more than anything, I would love feedback if you've got it *u* It tends not to get as much attention as some of my other stuff. Check the first chapter notes for a complete (and ever-changing) list of warnings.

It’s only natural by now.

The thumping bass is all Kurt hears; its rhythm echoes almost painfully through his bones, overpowering the sound of his heart. At times he confuses the two, unsure where music ends and his own self begins. Maybe there’s no distinction — he is simply the embodiment of it, a tool used to convert something heard to something seen. Something seen, to something desired.

There’s a kind of grim satisfaction in being desired the way he is. It’s dark as night and just as different from the sweet light of romance that a part of him still yearns for. Not that he expects to find it anymore, not working in a dim-lit club in one of New York’s most unsavory areas. It’s ironic, he thinks, that desire should run so hot and heavy through such an undesirable place.

His thoughts are getting away from him again, but it doesn’t particularly matter most nights. Most nights, he can detach his body from his mind and move fluidly, teasingly, without regard for the predatory expressions mixed in among the obvious first-timers that can’t seem to close their fucking mouths for two seconds. None of that means anything except that he’s getting paid, a measly check enhanced by whatever bills are tossed onto the stage or even slipped into his pants, the touch lingering long after the anonymous hand has pulled away.

A touch of the fingertips. Sometimes Kurt wishes he could return to the days before he knew better. Before the absence of a no meant an implied yes, before he found himself thinking maybe, just maybe, he was ready — but the voice telling him that hadn’t been his own.

Now, he’s broken. A broken dream, a broken immune system, a broken life that once held such promise. All he can do now is do the best with what he has, which means putting on the best show he can muster, and that means forgetting himself in the process.

Tonight, however, he can’t let himself detach. He has a goal; there’s a man, Puck said, that might be willing to invest in a larger venue for Body Shots. Of course, his favorite performer happens to be Kurt. A good show, and he’ll gladly work with Puck to improve the place. While Kurt isn’t exactly thrilled at the club moving somewhere else, he wants to make sure he does everything in his power to get that money to Puck. After all, Kurt Hummel doesn’t do anything halfway.

His eyes scan the room, and he groans internally.

“You can’t miss him,” Puck had said. Well, he seems to be missing  _something_ , because no one here looks like they’d be rich enough to throw money away on a strip club. There really only seems to be one person of interest in the general area that had been pointed out to him — a young man around Kurt’s age with dark, gelled hair, his eyes wide and his lips parted. He doesn’t look particularly well-off, but he’s a lot more put-together than the others around him, and he seems to be alone.

If this is the guy, Kurt muses, then this might not turn out too horribly. He puts on a smirk and stares directly into the man’s eyes, vaguely wondering what hue they must be. If they’re green, or dark chocolate brown, or blue like his own. The first song starts to wind down, and Kurt decides to take the initiative by stepping off of the stage. He gracefully dodges around the tables and chairs and people — men and women alike — as he makes his way towards Mr… whatever; he doesn’t need to know his name.

It only takes a few seconds more for Kurt to reach the guy, who glances around as if looking for someone. Kurt arches an eyebrow and leans in, aware of the eyes focused directly, hungrily, on them.

“Do you mind breaking the rules?” he asks, sure to let the whisper brush over skin, light and teasing.

“Uh— Depends what kind of rules you’re, um, talking about,” the man says carefully, and _oh_ , this is going to be all kinds of fun. 

“Touch me.”

He can hear interested (and disgruntled) murmurs around them, but he only has eyes for the handsome man sitting in front of him, who seems speechless. Kurt smiles in what he hopes is an encouraging expression, and shuffles in closer so that his legs straddle the man’s thighs without touching any part of him. He’s about to give up when hands, tentative and unsure, caress his hips; thumbs, refreshingly cold to the touch, dip under the waistband and tug absently at the taut fabric.

“What’s your name?” Kurt asks, draping his arms around to grip at the back of the chair.

“Blaine,” the man mutters, never breaking his gaze. His eyes are hazel, Kurt observes, like melted amber.

Strangely enough, the music that starts to pick up again isn’t important. It’s not a part of him or an extension of him as before, not as he drags his hands down Blaine’s chest and back up to settle on his shoulders. It’s just… there, to provide a small nudge forward into the first rock of his hips.

After that, it’s only natural.

The music is almost annoying in how it combats Kurt’s thoughts, which are filled with — though he can hardly believe it; he’d expected to be done with such ridiculous notions — a boy. No, a man. The very same man that he’s grinding against with reckless abandon, that still hasn’t looked away even for a split-second, that seems to be everything his teenage self had dreamed of.

He can’t do this, not anymore, but the thoughts remain, as does his goal. Puck needs the money. Still, Kurt can’t help but tease; he mouths at the base of Blaine’s neck, barely touching, and slows his hips to an infuriating pace.

“Dove—”

“Call me Kurt,” he whispers, and only a second later does he remember that he’s not supposed to use his real name, but fuck it.

“Kurt,  _please_ ,” Blaine says, quiet and pleading and holy shit he sounds really good like that. “If— If you’re not going to—”

“Part of the show, sir,” Kurt interrupts, pulling back to smirk. “But I’m flexible. We have a room, if you’d like.”

Blaine looks skeptical, so Kurt continues, “It’s not much, but it’s cozy. Intimate.”

“I’m not… I don’t do that kind of thing,” Blaine explains. “I can’t just throw money at you and—”

“No payment necessary,” Kurt hums. It’s not exactly truthful, of course, but Puck can handle that part of it. Kurt’s just the middle man, so to speak. “So, will I see you later?”

A beat, then, “Okay.”

Kurt most certainly doesn’t almost smile that wide, toothy, overenthusiastic smile at the thought of seeing Blaine later. No, he keeps his head and backs away gently, slowly, and with no regard for the giddiness he feels.  _At least you’re not popping a crazy boner in these pants_ , he thinks.  _At least not yet._

Kurt calls over one of the few wait staff members and whispers his instructions: take that man —  _yes_ , the one I was just with — take him to the private room and tell him that I’ll be there soon. 

After watching the employee scurry away, he returns to the stage for a last performance. The mask is starting to stick to his face, he realizes with a half-assed attempt at a sultry expression. He’d never really gotten the hang of looking… sexy. He can move his body with the best of them, and tease effortlessly — which, for all intents and purposes, is enough — but he can’t seem to get the muscles of his face to recreate the sensual, almost wistfully desperate countenances that he sees on so many magazine covers.

His appeal is his youth, his catch-me-if-you-can flirtation, and his ability to feign wide-eyed innocence even when he has none of that left.

What he’d give for even a sliver of his old innocence back…

But it’s gone. Gone, and never coming back, and he needs to accept it and move on. He gasps involuntarily and flinches as a hand trails along his inner thigh — a middle-aged man’s hand with a twenty-dollar bill held firmly between two fingers. Kurt composes himself, takes the money, and blows a kiss to cover up his momentary lapse in control.

A glance over to where Blaine had been sitting shows nothing but an empty chair at a table for two, so Kurt decides that now is as good a time as ever to leave. After all, there are other performers waiting their turn. Another roll of his hips against the single pole, the cold metal searing his skin through thin fabric, and he exits the stage. He ignores the single pat on the back he receives and the approving murmurs, searching instead for someone else, who must have just finished her round as well.

“Kurt!”

He grins as a young woman half-dressed in vibrant purple throws herself into his arms.

“A good show?” he asks, as per tradition.

“The best of the best,” she responds in kind. They break apart, and Kurt takes a moment to look at her — the Midnight Rose, though he prefers the name Marley.

“No assholes, I hope?”

“No more than usual,” Marley hums, taking a small Dixie cup and filling it with water. “You, on the other hand, look like you’ve had the time of your life.”

“You could say that. Turns out maybe my ‘special mission’ won’t be too much of a drag, after all.”

“You’re in love,” she teases. “You’ve finally found someone that doesn’t, and I quote, ‘make me want to run out of the room and leave nothing but my middle finger behind.’”

“Ha. Of course not.”

“One of these days it’ll happen, you know. You’ll fall in love with some strapping young gentleman and suddenly I’ll find myself wearing a nice, modest dress to your wedding.”

“Modesty? How scandalous.”

“Oh, stop deflecting. I’m not giving up until you’ve found your man.”

Kurt chuckles; this is the reason why Marley is his closest friend in this hellhole. Her unwavering optimism coupled with unfailing sweetness is something he’s never had himself, and has rarely had the chance to come across in someone else.

“Why don’t we ever talk about  _you_?” he asks, nudging her shoulder playfully. “I think it’s time you got out there, too.”

“Well…”

“I knew it. What’s his name and does he have a cute nose?”

“What?” Marley laughs. “Um, his name is Jake—”

“Noah’s half-brother?”

“Maybe?”

“Marley Rose, you little minx.” Kurt pulls her into a one-armed hug before checking the time on the worn clock that hangs on one wall. “I have to go, but you are telling me all about this when we see each other again!”

“I promise,” she says, and Kurt jumps when he feels a hand slap his ass. He shoots Marley a look. “Go get ‘em.”

He grins as he heads for the doorway feeling pretty damn good. It’s a good day, he decides, a spring in his step. He’d much rather not be Puck’s bargaining tool tonight, but there’s an excitement stirring through his nerves that he hasn’t felt in what seems like years. Not since he first moved to New York, at least.

When he sees Puck standing outside the door to the private room, Kurt takes a deep breath.


End file.
